Lip Trill

When your lips are trilling, they create resistance against the outgoing airstream. This back-pressure actually reduces the pressure on the vocal folds, making the lip trill uniquely safe — you can do it even when slightly vocally fatigued.

Despite being gentle, it trains everything: the breath has to be steady to keep the trill going, the resonance must be forward for the sound to project, and the pitch must be accurate. Many vocal coaches begin every single lesson with lip trills for these reasons.

1. 01Bring your lips together in a relaxed pout.
2. 02Blow air through them. They should start flapping — this is the trill.
3. 03Add voice: hum while the lips trill. You should hear a buzzy, motorboat sound.
4. 04If the trill stops, you have either too little air or too much lip tension.
5. 05Sustain on a comfortable pitch for 4 beats.
6. 06Now move: glide up and down like a siren on the lip trill.
7. 07Repeat the five-tone scale pattern on lip trill.

• If you can't get the trill started, press your cheeks gently inward with two fingers — this reduces the surface area and makes it easier.
• The trill should feel completely effortless — no pushing.
• Think "ba-ba-ba" very fast — that's essentially what the lips are doing.

• Tensing the lips — the trill requires loose, floppy lips.
• Pushing too much air — find the minimum air needed to sustain the trill.
• Letting the pitch go flat during the exercise.

• 01Lip trill siren: full range glide on lip trill.
• 02Lip trill scales: five-tone, octave scale.
• 03Staccato lip trill: burst-pause-burst-pause on a single pitch.